A blog devoted mainly to questions of authenticity in popular music, frequently featuring MP3's of uncommon--and uncommonly good--songs. Hosted by Yuval Taylor and Hugh Barker, authors of Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music (Norton, 2007).

These songs go beyond parody or imitation. You are actually meant
to believe that it’s really Louis, Bob, Karen, and Ray singing. This is
imposture, pure and simple, and as gloriously fake, as inauthentic in every
sense of the word, as you can get. If you can nominate anything faker than
this, I’ll give you a free copy of our book.

The first two are obviously jokes, but like all good jokes,
they resonate--in this case they say something about the differences between
our era and a past one. The story behind the third is that Richard Carpenter
denied Locust permission to use Karen Carpenter’s original vocals from the
Carpenters’ “Hurting Each Other,” so Locust found someone to impersonate
her--to a T (thanks to David Scott for alerting me to this song).

Dozens of trumpeters have imitated Louis Armstrong over the
years (and done a better job of it too), and plenty of would-be Joni Mitchells
populated the early 1970s folk scene, but that’s imitation, not imposture--none
of them were really pretending to be Louis
or Joni.

Of course, this kind of thing used to be far more frequent
in the golden days of the movie musical (the plot of Singing in the Rain revolves around just such impersonation). Here'sa terrific list of movie dubbees (thanks to Jody Rosen for this one).

Credits? Louis Armstrong was impersonated by Shek Baker and
Kurt Stockdale of Supermasterpiece.com. Bob Dylan was impersonated by the anonymous
folks who constitute Eye Berried Pall. Karen Carpenter was impersonated by Wendy
Roberts, who makes a living impersonating her. And Ray Charles was impersonated
by Jamie Foxx, who played him in the biopic Ray.

What people are saying about our book

"This revelatory book is a must for anyone who has been an ambivalent pop music fan. . . . An exhaustive and thought-provoking book that deserves serious attention." --Alan Licht, The Wire

5/22

[Four stars] "Whether nailing how perceptions of the blues were moulded by the racist cultural bias of those who originally recorded it or assessing the multi-dimensional pranksterism of the KLF, this well-researched, informative and thought-provoking book pierces the bubble of what pop authenticity really means." --Thomas H. Green, Q Magazine

4/18

[five stars] "Enthusiastic . . . superb. . . . Like all great music writing, Faking It is unashamedly subjective and, above all, makes you wish you were listening to the records it describes." --Martin Hemming, Time Out London

“Persuasive . . . powerful. . . . A fascinating and nimble investigation of pop’s paradoxes. . . . A great collection of true stories about fake music. It's the essay as Möbius strip; a literary illusion that . . . tells us more about what's true, what's not, and why that doesn't always matter, than a more straightforward confrontation with the secrets and lies of pop music ever could.” --Jeff Sharlet, New Statesman

4/15

“Valuable . . . instructive . . . Taylor, who has written extensively on slavery, is particularly strong when discussing how the music of the American South was divided along race lines by the fledgling record industry, even when white and black artists had almost identical repertoires. The chapters on Jimmie Rodgers's autobiographical 'TB Blues' and Elvis's 'Heartbreak Hotel' are excellent.” --Campbell Stevenson, The Observer

4/14

“Diabolically provocative . . . [A] tightly focused examination of why, when and how authenticity became such a powerful force in popular music – and eventually its key marketing tool.” --Greg Quinn, Toronto Star

4/11/07

“The authors skillfully navigate a complicated musical past. . . . The book avoids the prose pitfalls of dry academic work and is not without humor. . . . Among the most notable essays is a bracing consideration of Donna Summer and her disco hit ‘Love to Love You Baby,’ the hypnotic epic of simulated female orgasm. In this chapter, Barker and Taylor nicely fuse a brief history of early disco with a larger contemplation of the tensions between authenticity and artifice in the disco era. As good as the authors' defense of disco is, it's topped by a riveting analysis of the career of John Lydon. In this finely nuanced chapter, Barker and Taylor penetrate the core contradictions within the punk scene, a genre rife with internal debates over authenticity and fakery.” --Chrissie Dickinson, Washington Post

4/11/07

“This is a work by two fanatics that, through copious research and profound contemplation, offers fellow fans a stimulating semantic exercise . . . and, more significantly, carte blanche to enjoy guilty pleasures without guilt. . . . Barker’s obvious passion for and deep understanding of manufactured pop make his chapters fascinating. . . . The exquisite research and nuanced insight Barker brings to [Donna Summer’s] moans and groans makes ['Love to Love You Baby'] one of the strongest chapters in the book. . . . [And Taylor’s 'Heartbreak Hotel'] is one of the most passionate, articulate love letters to the King I have ever read.” --Jake Austen, Chicago Journal

4/7/07

"Merrily throwing in references from R. Kelly to Mississippi John Hurt to the KLF, . . . Faking It is dynamite for the pop subversive. . . . The arguments are very persuasive." --Bob Stanley, The (London) Times

4/1/07

“What Faking It shows us, through an impressive array of eras and musicians, is that the quest for purity in pop is a fool’s errand. . . . Faking It is a fascinating read based on a truly provocative and enlightening argument. It will be hard to think about pop music in the same way again.” --Nora Young, Toronto Star

“In 10 chapters--each addressing a particular song or song cover as a starting point before running rabid over all kinds of cultural, racial, and social terrain--[the authors] trace the shifting importance of originality in popular music from the early 20th century to the early 21st with diplomatic élan and overachieving gusto, . . . smashing precious illusions like microbrew bottles along the way. . . . Faking It is certain to inspire some awesome conversations among readers.” --Raymond Cummings, Baltimore City Paper

3/22/07

"Sure to fuel arguments among music nerds for years to come. . . . Taken as a whole, the book becomes a fascinating, complex study of the increasingly blurred line between actuality and artifice." --Ira Brooker, Time Out Chicago

3/14/07

"A brutal attack on what professor David Lowethal called 'the dogma of self-delusion,' which basically kills the entire concept of 'authentic' alternative culture, eats it, shits it, buries it, digs it up, burns it, eats it and shits it out again. And then nails it to a canvas and calls it art. I intend to carry this book around with me. And the next time I meet a DJ who looks like he might be about to use the phrase 'keeping it real,' I shall smack him in the head with it. Repeatedly." --Steven Wells, Philadelphia Weekly

3/4/07

"Combines a strong point of view, intelligent and informed musical analysis, and rigorous historical research." --Ben Yagoda, The New York Times Book Review

2/18/07

“Essential . . . a model of lucidity and concision. . . . Barker and Taylor might make great house builders. They lay a solid foundation for their argument that popular music is inherently 'impure.' . . . Part of the fun here is the way the writers trust their ears. . . . [A] smart, passionate book.” --Charles Taylor, Newsday

2/15/07

"With plenty of interesting and contentious assertions to stimulate even casual readers, this is a heck of an argument starter." --Booklist

2/15/07

"Insightful. . . . Faking It delivers lots of good stories." --Michael Washburn, Time Out New York